Before heading to Dubrovnik, we went to see nearby Trsteno arboretum where some of Game of Thrones is filmed. Dubrovnik itself is used for much of the setting of Kings Landing, so it makes sense to use other areas nearby for other scenes. It did make me wonder how film crews go about finding their locations - Trsteno is so small, despite being the only arboretum on the Adriatic, it most only have really gained recognition through its connection to the TV show.
It was very peaceful and pretty, shady walkways, a very grand fountain and an incredible aqueduct that shows the determination of the person who commissioned the fountain, I could imagine them saying, 'just make it happen'!
We arrived in Dubrovnik just after 11am and parked up. Car parking here is hard work and very expensive. We've realised that a car is unnecessary in Croatia. When we come here again, which we will, we'll travel by ferry instead. It is easy to transfer from the airport to Split and there are frequent foot passenger ferries to all of the islands and down to Dubrovnik. We'll also make more use of AirBnB as experience has shown you get better value accommodation and care, by people who have more at stake, than in hotels or accommodation provided by Booking.com.
Our accommodation is lodged high up a long flight of steps within the massive, 600 year old boundary walls of the old town. As well as containing lots of holiday rooms and apartments, the narrow, stepped streets are very definitely still residential with plants and kids toys decorating doorsteps and washing strung up high across the streets to dry.
We were hot and tired by the time we'd got the car sorted and carried our bags back to the accommodation, so it was time to head to the beach. Excluding our arrival day, we have two full days here, plenty of time to explore the old town and walk the ramparts, in a cooler part of day.
Banja beach is the nearest to the old town, it is pretty, part sand part pebble, within sight of the old walls, but absolutely packed. Part of the beach is public and part is a beach club, playing chilled music, perfectly suiting a lazy, late afternoon sunbathe, assuming you don't get trodden on by someone picking their way to the sea through the narrow gaps between beach towels on the public part of the beach, or get shocked into alertness by a child falling on you, as happened to me.
On our first evening we went out for a drink and found ourselves, quite by accident, at a place that is notoriously difficult to find - Buza Bar. You access the bar through a hole in the wall, Buza means hole, and pick your way down some rocky steps to one of the tables perched at different levels on patches of rock, overlooking the sea. The rocks are on the outside of the city wall, and coloured lights illuminate the brickwork in a delightful mix of ancient and modern.
There are no loos at Buza Bar so necessity caused us to move on. Sitting outside the next bar, at the junction of a couple of wide streets, conversation turned to architecture, simply because we were surrounded by so many incredible examples - ornate arched windows on the building opposite and four statues on the roof of the building to our right, but being ignorant of the topic, we could only appreciate the aesthetics and notice the variances. Erik then noticed some damage from the war in the nineties on one of the buildings and we found it really hard to picture the safe, friendly place where we were sitting as a relatively recent war zone. There is an exhibition of war photography taking place which we then decided we'll see while we're here. It feels important to acknowledge where this beautiful place has come from and what it and its inhabitants have been through.
Back in the direction of our accommodation, in a square at the end of the main street, an orchestra was playing and being filmed. Passers-by were able to stop to watch and appreciate the music and it was all very unstuffy and informal. We think it was a rehearsal for a festival of music that is taking place over the next few nights, but it was a lovely experience to stumble upon.
With my return home being imminent, my thoughts have turned to how I feel about it. I haven't come up with any fixed answers about what to do next, but I do have some kernels of ideas. Importantly, I don't feel the need to keep travelling. My wanderlust has been satisfied for now and I am ready to get back to real life, to seeing friends and family, getting back into training and working out how I want to earn a living going forwards.
The next morning, we got up leisurely and decided to go and see the war photography exhibition, conveniently located in one of the shady lanes near to us. The permanent collection covers the siege of Dubrovnik and the wider wars covering Bosnia and Kosovo that occurred in the wake of Croatia and Serbia declaring independence in the early nineties. I haven't quite processed my thoughts on this enough to write about them yet but Erik made a valid point that if you look at a wide enough timeline, almost every place in the world, and one time or another, or more, has been through a similar experience.
After the heat of the midday sun had passed, we went to the beach club at Banje Beach - a more opposite experience from the photos we had seen earlier in the day couldn't be imagined. As the sun started to go down, we indulged in a few cocktails before strolling slowly back for dinner at a fabulous little vegetarian restaurant located right at the foot of the steps leading to our place.
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